FLOWER CHILD RESTAURANT
Charlotte, NC
Thinking Deeper
I’ve been an artist for a long time, but I’ve only been an art activist since I started. The Good of the Hive in 2015. I still have a lot to learn. Not just about being an activist, but also about bees and the environment.
Every time I create a mural for The Good of the Hive, there is an intention I go in with, and then there is always a twist at some point (as with any proper adventure) that reveals something else—something I hadn’t thought about or something that I hadn’t thought deeply enough about. The mural on Flower Child restaurant in Charlotte, NC was no exception.
The Community
From the beginning, I knew this project would focus on food and the importance of the bees. The Flower Child team cares about bees and understands their importance. Because the mural would be on a restaurant, I saw this partnership as a great way to talk to people about the connection between pollination and food systems and everyone at Flower Child was as excited as I was about it. The team put little bee magnets next to the dishes on the menu that pollinators played the largest part in making possible. We had an awesome event with kids where they got to participate in creating two versions of menu items with Chef Eddie, one with the items that required pollination and one without. It was immediately obvious how much better food is with pollinators and the kids had a blast!
The Process
The twist in this project was a personal one around the activism aspect. When the project first came to my awareness, I initially started thinking about this project I focused on the visuals. I was imagining wild psychedelic bees and flowers. But somewhere along the way, I started researching the Flower Child movement of the late 60s and their incredibly gentle activism based on flowers. The radical, awe-inspiring, paradigm-shifting idea of offering someone a flower in order to change the world came into focus for me. It occurred to me that this is what I am trying to do with my bees.
Peaceful Activism
Until now, I’ve never really identified with the hippie culture. I was raised in the 1980s. Hippie culture was something from my aunt and uncle’s youth. Something that had been left behind long ago. But it occurred to me that whether I identify as a hippie or not, I am, on a daily basis, creating a peaceful activist movement… Ever since I had that gentle connective moment with one tiny honey bee on the floor of my apartment in Manhattan many years ago, I had been echoing that experience with painted bees. That bee offered me her life and I accepted it. The flowers the flower children gave out were symbols just like the bees I paint. In the end, I decided that the most ‘flower child-like mural I could create would be one that continued the simple I idea I have been pulsing for 5250-something bees.
What it Means to be an Activist
As I said before, I am still learning what it means to be an activist. I am still learning that there are many different ways to raise awareness and I am still learning what type of activism I think serves this movement. This mural at Flower Child has reinforced the power in gentle activism based on connection and love. Flower Child restaurant is all about aiming at happiness. I try my hardest to simply let the beauty of the bees and their hives carry a message to instigate curiosity and change… at least until I see that something else works better.
